A summit on ship and submarine building in Australia will call on the local defence industry to help the South Australian Government strengthen its case for the Navy's next submarine fleet to be built in Adelaide.

The State Government hopes to bring together a range of experts involved in the naval ship building field to help form the its submission to a national defence industry white paper.

In recent months, the Federal Government backed away from a promise to build submarines in Adelaide with fears it was close to signing a deal to buy the Japanese Soryu-class submarines at a cost of about $25 billion.

The Commonwealth Government has an opportunity now to set up a flow of continuous work for 30 years, that makes us one of the world's leading, cost competitive naval shipbuilding nations."

The planned summit follows a submission to the Senate inquiry into naval shipbuilding from Dr John White that suggested buying Japanese-made submarines could be up to three times more expensive than building them locally.

Dr White is one of the Coalition's key shipbuilding advisers and co-authored the Winter-White report on shipbuilding in Australia, an as yet unreleased report into the troubled Air Warfare Destroyer project.

Coalition foolish to ignore advice: Xenophon

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon said the Federal Government would be foolish to ignore Dr White's advice.

"Dr John White is an internationally renowned expert with a proven track record on how to build ships and submarines and he's essentially warning the people of Australia that the Australian Government is taking the wrong direction," Senator Xenophon said.

You have no doubt been hearing a lot about the Paris Agreement and know that it pertains to climate change, but are too embarrassed at this stage to ask for an overall explanation of what it's all about.